The Army has a need for realistic, restricted maximum range, low cost training ammunition, also referred to herein as projectile. Training projectiles are procured in quantities that greatly exceed the service projectiles, and they are expended during training at a high rate. Typically, most of the tank training ammunition that is produced in a year is used in training exercises. Although costs vary due to materials used and production rates, the typical cost of a service projectile might range between 1.5 and 14 times that of a training projectile. For this reason, it is necessary that the training projectiles have a very low acquisition cost.
Existing training ammunitions for tanks and other direct fire systems suffer from shortcomings in many areas of physical realism, flight performance, and cost. More specifically, in the case of a 105 mm tank training ammunition, the conventional training projectiles that are used to simulate kinetic energy service rounds have a much different physical profile than the service rounds. This training round cartridge, the M724A1 is much shorter than the corresponding M900 service round. Such difference can cause the soldiers to have a significantly reduced training effectiveness. In addition, since the M724A1 projectile is gyroscopically (spin) stabilized and the service projectile is statically (fin) stabilized, they have significantly different flight characteristics.
In the case of the 120 mm tank training ammunition, the conventional M865PIP training round is significantly shorter than the corresponding M829A2 service round. As a result, such a difference could provide the soldiers with an adverse training environment, both from length and cartridge center of gravity concerns.
What is therefore needed is a realistic, restricted maximum range, low cost training projectile. Prior to the advent of the present invention, the need for such a training projectile has heretofore remained unsatisfied.